BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- A Birmingham
school employee faces charges after a music teacher at the Alabama Waldorf
School found some of the school's missing instruments at a pawn shop.

Quentin
Brooks, 59, faces theft of property charges after police determined he took two
dulcimers from the school in Crestwood and pawned them at an East Lake pawn
shop, according to Birmingham Police Department spokesman Lt. Sean Edwards.

Police were
notified that several instruments had gone missing in January.

"They
disappeared over the course of the school year," said Lisa Grupe, the school's
administrative director.

Grupe said a
music teacher who was looking for a guitar recognized the two dulcimers and
police were called.

The
detective couldn't find any serial numbers on the instruments but found Brooks
was the person who pawned them. When Brooks was interviewed by police, he
confessed to taking the instruments and pawning them, Edwards said.

Brooks had
pawned several things at the shop, he said.

"It appears
that this is something he's been doing all along, but just been an under the
radar kind of thing," Edwards said. "I think what stood out is the uniqueness
of the instrument."

Grupe said
Brooks wasn't an employee of the school.

"Because we
rent space in a city school they open and close the building," she said. "[The
janitors] are not employees of our school. They are city staff."